CHAPTER PAGE
I[Where There’s a Will There’s a Way]23
II[London Town in Shakespeare’s Day]36
III[The Soldier Apprentice]48
IV[Duped and Robbed]60
V[A Duel with a Dastard]72
VI[Darkness and Dawn]83
VII[Some Stratagems]95
VIII[The Din of Battle]107
IX[Guerilla Tactics]119
X[The Three Turks]130
XI[Brave Hearts and True]144
XII[Slavery and a Sea-Fight]155
XIII[A Bad Beginning]171
XIV[Powhatan and His People]182
XV[Treason and Treachery]193
XVI[Captive to the Indians]204
XVII[Pocahontas to the Rescue]215
XVIII[Fire and Starvation]226
XIX[A Turn in the Tide]238
XX[Diamond Cut Diamond]250
XXI[Some Ambuscades]262
XXII[A Curious Combat]274
XXIII[A Humbled Chieftain]285
XXIV[A Dismal Tale]296

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
[The Terrified Frenchman Dropped His Sword and Fell upon His Knees]Frontispiece
[He Hastened Down to the Water’s Edge and Shouted Lustily] 85
[The Settlers Had Been under the Sleepless Eye of Spies Lying Hidden] 206
[It Was in Vain that the Indian Struggled to Shake Off that Iron Grip] 282

FOREWORD

The history of the world furnishes few lives so romantic and replete with stirring incident as that of John Smith, the founder of the first English colony in America—that settlement at Jamestown in Virginia, of which the United States of today is the outgrowth.

John Smith began life in the year 1580, in the glorious reign of Good Queen Bess. It was a world of turmoil into which our hero came, but a most fitting field for so adventurous a spirit. In France, the gallant Henry of Navarre was fighting for a kingdom and his faith against the Catholic League. In the Low Countries, the sturdy Dutchmen, under Maurice of Orange, were defending their homes from the invasion of the arrogant and bigoted Spaniard, who deemed it his duty to punish every Protestant people. In the east of Europe, the Ottomans—Asiatics from Turkestan and other countries—maintained an incessant and savage warfare against the subjects of the Emperor of Germany.

There was but one peaceful spot in all Christendom, and that the “right little, tight little island” of our forefathers. There were, however, thousands of Englishmen who, like John Smith, had no stomach for a life of ease and they were to be found in every army on the continent, fighting for gain or religion, and often for sheer love of the life of action. Moreover Cabot, the first on the coast of America, had started that movement which was to create the greatest colonial empire in the history of the world, and Raleigh had already made his first futile attempt to settle Virginia, where John Smith was destined to play a master part.